Never Knew
by BiteMeTechie
Summary: It's always the ones we never think we needed that we miss the most.


-grabs megaphone and puts it to her lips- **DEATH FIC AHOY!**

Don't read if you don't want to feel miserable. You may think I'm exaggerating, but if you've read what little angst I've written before, you know to stay back when I warn you to.

-

The hotel was close to the cemetery. So close that Elizabeth could walk to it if she wanted.

If she could walk.

If her knees would carry her that far without turning to mush.

She didn't trust them to.

Not in the snow.

Prague was always covered in snow.

Always, always, every time she'd been there before. The white blanketing everything, coating the hundreds of spires that jutted upwards into the clouds, cutting into the blue.

Why did it have to be so blue? It was too cheery a color for this.

It was a color that reminded her of him. His eyes.

Kind eyes, kind eyes that were closed prematurely.

There shouldn't have been snow. Snow was too pure, too untouched, too _beautiful_ for this occasion.

It should have been bleak. The sky should have been dark. Murky and filled with dark, heavy clouds, pregnant with the promise of a violent rainstorm.

_That_ would have been fitting. _That_ would have seemed right. _That_ would have felt like the world was in mourning the way it should have been.

But none mourned. None outside the immediate circle gathered in that graveyard.

Graveyard...graveyard...

How had she gotten there?

Did she walk without realizing?

She must have.

But...

How could she?

It didn't matter. The point was that she made it.

She hadn't even worn a coat. Not that she noticed. She was too cold _inside_ to notice the cold on the _outside_. The icy chill was so strong within her chest that it far outweighed that which was without.

The priest was saying something but she couldn't focus on what it was. His voice was just a dull murmur, buzzing in her ears beneath wave after wave of thought that was raging in her head.

The headstone was gray. Gray and somber and poking out of the fallen white with his name etched on it.

She swayed on her feet, as it echoed in her mind and she wondered why _his_ death was affecting her so badly.

This was a deeper cut than it was for Grodin; a heavier blow than it was for Ford.

She had taken for granted that he _could_ die.

She thought herself prepared for the news of Sheppard's death...or McKay...after all, they were the ones who were constantly getting into trouble.

But _Radek_?

He was _always_ there. Regardless of whether or not Rodney was out of commission, Radek was _always_ there. His place was cemented on Atlantis and it was defined, at least in her mind as: _always there_.

Now he wasn't.

Now he never would be again.

Every mission off world, she steeled herself for news of death and destruction. It had become too much a part of the routine for her not to.

But somehow, she had convinced herself that _he_ would be back. She worried about Sheppard...she worried about McKay...but she didn't worry about _him_.

Ironic, ironic that when the word came through the gate that someone on the team was in need of medical attention, she feared for Rodney and John but not for Radek.

_Cruelly_ ironic that he was the one carried through, bleeding from the gut and gasping for breath and making little gurgling noises that she was unaware a man could make.

She didn't break when she saw him. She didn't crack. Not a single fracture was there made in her calm exterior.

Even as Beckett rushed to his side to try and revive him, even as his body convulsed when the shock paddles hit his chest, she kept that frigid cool.

As much for everyone else's benefit as for her own. It wouldn't do to rush to him.

It wouldn't be proper to drop to her knees in his rapidly draining blood next to him.

It wouldn't be fitting to sit there and scream at him not to leave.

Maybe if she had, he wouldn't have gone so easily.

So quietly.

So _quickly_.

If she had gone to him and **ordered** him to stay, maybe he would have fought harder.

Maybe he would have fought for _her_ and she wouldn't be here...

Staring down at the hole in the ground where his casket had been placed.

Watching as the gravediggers close up the earth over him...

Leaning into John Sheppard's arm around her, grateful for the warmth and the comfort offered by one who felt the loss.

Letting the mask of indifference slip from her face and allowing the heated tears to slip from her eyes and onto his waiting shoulder.

Crying for the first time since it had happened because the realization of what is lost has hit her like a truck.

Why?

Why _him_?

Why the one she never knew she needed?

-

A/N: Gah. I actually made myself weepy writing this. I'm blaming hormones and this song I'm listening too...'cause I don't write well enough to make people cry. I just..._don't_. I can't. I'm not any good at angst. I know it, you know it, let's let it go.

Anyways. It's a first for me in many ways. My first real Weir centric piece; _and_ it leans towards Weir/Zelenka and mild Weir/Sheppard. I suppose you could see either ship in this case. I'm pretty happy with it.


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